Tim Choate

Timothy Clark Choate was born on October 11, 1954, in Dallas, Texas, to Betty Nell Choate, a commercial artist, and Ben Tom Choate, who worked in building and construction. He studied at the University of Texas in Austin, where he took part in theater productions, and also attended Cornell University. He died on September 24, 2004, at the age of 49, following a motorcycle accident in Los Angeles, California, and is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Choate built a stage career that spanned both coasts. His Broadway work ran from 1978 to 1981 and included appearances in Da and Crimes of the Heart. Beyond Broadway, he performed with the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival in productions of Twelfth Night and The Merry Wives of Windsor, appeared in the Los Angeles staging of Beyond Therapy, and worked in regional theater at the Long Wharf Theater, the Kennedy Center, and the Berkshire Theatre Festival.

His film career included multiple collaborations with the Merchant Ivory production company, among them The Europeans (1979), Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980), and Jefferson in Paris (1995). Additional film credits include Times Square (1980), Ghost Story (1981), Blow Out (1981), Def-Con 4 (1985), the Academy Award-winning short Ray's Male Heterosexual Dance Hall (1987), Soapdish (1991), Immaculate Conception (1992), Live Nude Girls (1995), and Pearl Harbor (2001).

On television, Choate portrayed Zathras on the science fiction series Babylon 5 and held a recurring role on Newhart. He appeared in the Tales from the Darkside episode "Halloween Candy" (1985) as Michael Killup and had roles in the television films Blind Witness (1989), Highway to Heaven (1989), and Child in the Night (1990). His guest appearances included The Practice, Diagnosis: Murder, The Bold and the Beautiful, Murder, She Wrote, and Dragnet.